DASH! Rock, Paper, Automail!
by Imperica
Summary: Alluring sixteen year old Certified State Alchemist Edward Elric is at it again. Trying to bring back what he lost, but also seeing what no one has seen before. WARNING: Character Death. Possible pairing.


Click. Drag, click. Ka-click. Click, click. Click, scrape, click.

The sound of chalk being scraped over bare stone floor could be heard echoing throughout the room. On the wall there was a suit of armor, shiny and postured as it always was, watching the scene inside the dimly lit room unravel. Following the gray armor was a never-ending cycle of books, some shoved back carelessly into the bookcase while others were neatly aligned. The floor around them was clean, spotless even, for a circumference of five feet. From beyond those five feet, it was littered with open alchemic books containing notes scribbled in the sidelines and leafed pages, beakers of half-used chemicals and substances, and even a transmuted shoe with carbon-straw hybrid laces up the front. Little transmutations; the doll for Winry's sixth birthday and flowers for their mother's dining table, were easy for them. But nothing like this; nothing like this certain banned art of alchemy had they ever tried before.

His inhuman gold eyes gazed upon the chalk transmutation circle he'd been previously drawing. He sat up straight, letting the chalk gently rest on the floor.

"That ought to do it. You ready?" A confident boy asked of his younger brother kneeling a few feet from him. He couldn't have been any older than ten or eleven.

"Mmm-hmm." His younger brother turned to him with an unsure look, hoping his brother hadn't noticed his insecurity, but still managed to nod.

"Don't be scared, Al." Edward reassured, looking back at his chalk creation. "Everything's perfect."

Outside, the rain gently began to hit the ground in soft droplets. Over a short moment of time, the rain grew heavier, pounding softly on the window. Wind whipped through the trees that oversaw the small, two-story ranch house which sheltered the two boys Elric. Through life, that house had been their one place they could return to. Living with their mother and concurrently the Rockbells from down the street, life was great for them. All day they would create things with alchemy and make their mother proud. Alchemy could seem to bring them everything they had ever wished for. But they would soon find that most important things were best left not tampered with.

There was a long silence. Edward finally turned to his little brother, a stiff smile on his face. He encouraged, "Let's go for it."

Al could only nod. His stomach was up in his throat. Something was not right. But he had to trust his older brother; his only family. The only thing he could do to avoid angering his older brother was to follow suit when he placed his hands heavily on the edge of the transmutation circle meant to bring their mother back from the dead. Pressing down hard, they both felt that warmness that had become so familiar to them siphon from their bodies. A warm yellow light flowed through the ground, illuminating the chalk circle, around the large pan of ingredients that were equivalent exchange for their mother, and finally surrounding the two boys themselves. They became encased in their own light, smiles growing from ear to ear as they watched in awe as to the workings of their alchemy.

Alchemy, the science of understanding the structure of matter; breaking it down, and then reconstructing it as something else. It can even make gold from lead. But alchemy is a science. It must follow all the natural laws. To create, something of equal value must be lost. That is the founding principle of alchemy and equivalent exchange.

On that night, those two boys found that some things just could not be measured on a simple scale. They knew the laws of science; of equivalent exchange. That gain required sacrifice. That something had to be taken from them, but they thought there was nothing more they could lose. They were wrong.

The soft, yet blinding yellow light suddenly turned with a crack of lightning. In a moment's time, it had changed into a violent dark purple. That must have been the first sign of something. The smile plastered on Ed's face immediately turned to a pale look of fear and confusion.

"What…what's going on…? The equations were perfect…Equivalent exchange, unless…" He calculated feverishly, eyes bolting around the room.

With one single flash of lightning signaling the height of the storm, Ed's pure cry of pain shattered the night air. Through the wind and rain, the sound seemed to travel all the way down to the Rockbell's house on the evening of February, year of 1910. Winry and her grandmother Pinako burst through the front door of their cozy home, disregarding the fact they were being pelted by rain.

"That was Edward!" Winry exclaimed about her childhood friend. She leaned to take a step forward, but Pinako stopped her.

"Wait Winry," She stated, "Look!"

In one glance, Winry saw the devastation of that household. Their whole house was glowing purple. Winry leaned forward, mouth open in awe, just as if to see that the glowing house was real. Her hand mid-air in stopped action, she felt as breath caught in her throat. Pinako had a tight, grim expression clouding over her face. She knew those boys had been experimenting with alchemy, that they had probably been plotting the revival of their late mother. Their father was gone away; they were orphans since their mother's death.

Looking around the room, dust and steam pouring everywhere, Edward couldn't find his gentle-natured little brother. He looked behind and in front of him as far as he could without leaning on the remnants of his completely missing leg, which was bleeding on the floor. Pain coursed through what was left of his thigh, up his hip and into his side. The pain made sweat in rivulets on his forehead, his blonde hair matted and hanging limply in his face.

"Al…? Alphonse, say something…" Edward pleaded, pain and terror in his unmarked voice. "Al, no…stay with me…!"

There was only the response of the dying alchemy light. With one stronger look, Edward came to the startling discovery of Al's clothing, strewn onto the ground where he used to be kneeling. Tears of pain dripped from his eyes onto the ground; his head cloudy. He faced back at the ground and closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself.

"Damn it…This wasn't supposed to…" Pain, both emotional and physical, welled up in his leg and he sharply caught his voice. "No…! What have I done?"

Another grunt in pain coupled with grasping of his thigh and he felt himself say through gasps, "He's…gone…"

The steamy dust around him had begun to clear slightly, letting something catch his eye. Looking up with sweat and tears running down his face, he watched as the dust cleared up enough to see a hand. A human hand on a human arm, sticking up at an oddly sharp angle. It waved slightly, as if struggling to bring itself to life. Feeling accomplished through all of his delirium, his golden eyes grew to saucers in an awe-filled expression of first discovery.

"Mom…is that you?" Ed asked quietly, almost cautiously.

But as the dust cleared more, his quickly realized that whatever he and Alphonse had created was not what he expected it to be. His excitement was quickly replaced with a rush of terror at seeing it through blurry eyes, straining to focus. Edward narrowed his eyes at it, focusing enough to see sharp angles and beating body parts. Its head looked human at first, but under a closer gaze, its skin was blotchy and peeled and it had two purple glowing circles for eyes. The body of the creature was that of a human after a losing fight with a blender. One of its whole sides was a beating red mass, the other skin-toned with roughness like concrete. Mucous was sticking all over its heaps of uncovered entrails and masses of blood poured onto the floor by the pint. Make-shift ribs stuck up incorrectly at sharp, unnatural angles from the back and sides.

Ed's stomach twisted in several abnormal ways as he wished he had never looked closer. Blinking just a little longer than normal, he gazed back at it with large golden orbs. Anyone next to him would clearly think his eyes would roll right out of his head onto the floor, they were so widened. It gasped at him, pleading for him to kill it with sick, loud wheezes. Yet again another blood curdling scream pierced the serene night air. This time, it was filled with utmost fear instead of pain.­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

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Hello everyone! Thanks for checking out my story. It'smy first Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction, so pleasereview! Ilove to know what readers think, bad or good. Oh, and just so _you're_ aware, I'm aware that the prologue starts out exactly like the show. I actually intended for it to be like that because I have no imagination of my own. It took me a very long time to come up with the first chapter (it was an accident, actually), so updates may be slow because, as my above statement says, I have no imagination of my own.

Hard to believe I'm thirteen, ne?

Stay tuned for the next/first chapter of DASH! Rock, Paper, Automail!


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